from legal riots
Posted by Leslie Eastman
“The Wildlife Service failed to rely on the best available scientific and commercial data when making the designation as required by law and therefore made inaccurate and arbitrary assumptions about the species' current and future status.”
If Legal Riot had a mascot, it would probably be the Dune Sagebrush Lizard.
Thanks to long-time reader Danelle, we've been following this creature's endangered species status since 2011, when the Obama administration prepared to place it on protected status. This appears to be part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to kill off the nation's oil production capabilities one piece at a time, as the lizards love to make their homes in fossil fuel-rich lands.
The threat loomed over the Texas oil industry for more than a year, until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a rare display of sanity and rationality, rejected the request.
In July this year, the Biden administration renewed its request for inclusion on the list, and this action targeted the Permian Basin, an important oil-producing area.
Now, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just announced that his office is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Biden administration officials over that statement.
Paxton's lawsuit cited the region's successful voluntary efforts to protect the species.
… Paxton said the defendants violated the Endangered Species Act by illegally listing the lizard as an endangered species.
“In making the designation as required by law, the Wildlife Service failed to rely on the best available scientific and commercial data and therefore made inaccurate and inaccurate assumptions about the species' current and future status,” Paxton said in a statement. Arbitrary assumptions.
“Furthermore, the designation of the dune sage lizard as endangered does not take into account ongoing voluntary conservation efforts at the local and state levels. As a result, the federal government's actions will unduly disrupt important economic development in the Permian Basin, leaving the country Texas industrial and private landowners face regulatory uncertainty and ambiguity about what they can do with their land, Ston said.
Paxton notified the Biden administration in late July that the listing violated the Endangered Species Act and that he would sue if it was not rescinded. The lawsuit asks the court to find that the agencies' actions were arbitrary and capricious, violating the Administrative Procedure Act and the European Space Agency.
Paxton also accused the Fish and Wildlife Service of being deliberately vague about protected areas in this economically critical region.
The dune sagebrush lizard, which is just 2.5 inches long, inhabits about 4 percent of the 86,000-square-mile Permian Basin, which spans Texas and New Mexico, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. In Texas, the species has been found in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties.
The Endangered Species List requires oil and gas companies to avoid areas where dune sage lizards live, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet identified those specific areas as it continues to collect data. Companies that violate this rule could face fines of up to $50,000 and possible jail time, depending on the severity of the violation.
Paxton's office criticized the Fish and Wildlife Service for not identifying areas where the lizards live, leaving operators and landowners in a dilemma over how to use their lands.
Any real science that Biden administration bureaucrats may be using is purely coincidental.
Frankly, I assume that the dune sagebrush lizard is in danger of becoming extinct as a species, much like the “global warming” of our planet from man-made carbon dioxide from fossil fuel production.
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